Order revisions occur regularly in order fulfillment. Once a Sales Order has been “Released” to the Warehouse to fulfill and ship, the order can not be changed unless the desired line(s) on the order are in a revisable status. For this post, we’re going to cover potential scenarios where a Sales Order may be canceled or changed. These changes will result in the need to move part or all of the Sales Orders into a revisable status.
Understanding Order Release in Oracle EBS R12
There are six actionable phases with a Sales Order. There are seven phases in total, but we will only consider the following five:
Starting with a booked order, any change will need to be documented. These are revisions. The order management/customer service team is the one that makes revisions. As the order travels down to each subsequent phase, their ability to easily make revisions decreases. Active involvement from the warehouse increases with each progression.
Changes are only possible when the Order is in the “booked” phase. You can also reset the order to the “Booked” phase once it has been Picked or Staged. This is the act of actively back-ordering the Sales Order. Back-ordering cancels the picking and staging of the order. This moves the order or order line back into a revisable state. This also removes the allocated material from the picked goods. The Sales Order no longer has these goods on it. You will have to pick these goods again to get them on the order.
When a change request occurs, you will need to evaluate your approach. The overarching question for the approach is based on operational efficiency. Which is easier, backing out of the order or finish picking it?
Order Revision Scenarios Covered:
We will walk through how to cancel or revise an order in Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) at each phase. These phases are as follows:
- Sales Order revisions after the orders are booked (Warehouse hasn’t received the Order)
- The Warehouse receives the Order and then it needs to be revised
- Order is actively being Picked when it needs to be revised
- Order/Line is canceled after the Sales Order/Line has been picked & Staged
- The order has been Shipped and needs to be revised
Scenario #1 – Order is Revised/Cancelled before being Released
Scenario details:
Sales Order is in a booked status. The Warehouse has not received the order. The customer calls and requests a change or a cancellation of the order in its entirety.
Order Revision Action Plan:
Customer Service (Order Management Group) cancels the Sales Order/Line or makes a change to a specific line. Upon completion, the Warehouse receives the revised order. The canceled order has no additional steps.
Scenario #2 – Warehouse receives the order before order revisions are needed
Scenario details:
The Warehouse has received the Sales Order. The Customer calls and requests a change to the Order or a Cancellation to the Order in its entirety.
Order Revision Action Plan:
Expediency is key in this situation. As order picking is not occurring, we want to keep it that way. Revisions must happen before the warehouse actively starts picking the order. To do this, the Customer Service team will need to contact the Warehouse leadership.
Warehouse leadership will need to perform two actions:
- Ensure order picking doesn’t start
- Cancel the open picking tasks in the system.
For the first part, they will need to pull the order from the queue of active orders. You can do this by removing the pick-slip from the stack of orders. The next step is to cancel the open tasks in EBS. If you reverse these steps you run the risk of having a warehouse worker trying to pick the order. They will be unable to access the order to pick in EBS but will have a pick-slip instructing them to pick it. This will cause confusion and delay. If the warehouse is running in a paperless mode, simply proceed to the step of task cancellation in EBS. Sales Order or Order Line revisions can occur after the tasks have been canceled.
If the Warehouse Manager/Supervisor (or Lead) has assigned the order to be actively picked, please see the next scenario.
Scenario #3 – Order revisions occur during active Picking
Scenario details:
The Warehouse is actively picking an order to fulfill. Customer calls and requests a change to the Order or a Cancellation to the Order in its entirety.
Order Revision Action Plan:
Active picking of the order is taking place at this phase. Customer Service will need to stop the active picking of the order. This will require coordination with the Warehouse leadership team. Depending on where the order is in the fulfillment cycle, it may take several hours before the order can be revised. The Warehouse leadership will need to evaluate where the order is in the fulfillment process. Will it be easier for the Warehouse Worker to return the material to where they found it (and reverse the execution of those picking tasks) or finish the fulfillment tasks? Once they have arrived at a decision, the leadership must communicate their intention with the warehouse staff.
Once the tasks have been completed (by returning the goods or completing the pick), the Warehouse leadership can return the order to an editable state. In the case of reversing the picking tasks, they will perform the same steps that were taken in scenario #2. If they chose to complete the picking and then backorder, they will need to follow the steps outlined in scenario #4.
Scenario #4 – Order is Revised or Cancelled after Order has been Picked, but not Shipped
Scenario details:
The order fulfillment phase is complete. The next step is to ship the order out of the warehouse. Customer calls and requests a change to the Order or a Cancellation to the Order in its entirety.
Order Revision Action Plan:
To make changes to the sales order, there can’t be any confirmed reservations. The easiest way to perform this to a sales order at this point is to cancel the confirmed shipment. You can perform this action for one line or the entire order. In Oracle EBS, this action is a backordered ship confirmation. Instead of confirming the shipment of goods, you instruct the system to cancel the entire picking confirmation process. This will place the order back into a revisable state.
Follow this same methodology for damaged goods in the staging area. You will need to split the damaged goods onto a delivery that is separate from the rest of the order. Backorder the delivery for the damaged goods. This will allow for the damaged goods to be moved to QC to be repackaged or properly disposed of. Then re-release the order to the warehouse to pick the next available good supply to be shipped to the customer.
Unfortunately for the warehouse, additional steps will need to be performed. These additional tasks are to deconstruct the pallets and return the goods back to the warehouse. Once the revisions are complete, customer service will re-release the order to the warehouse. The entire process will start over. The entire picking of the order starts anew.
Scenario #5 – Order revisions after shipping the sales order
Scenario details:
Sales Order has shipped out of the Warehouse. Customer calls and requests a change to the Order or a Cancellation to the Order in its entirety.
Order Revision Action Plan:
The point of shipment confirmation is the point of no return. The goods have left the warehouse and are on their way to the customer. At this point, Customer Service will need to authorize a return shipment. Crediting the customer for the goods is also necessary. However, the point of credit issuance will depend on company policy.
Conclusion
Sales Order revisions will happen in an order fulfillment environment. Efficiently managing these revisions is paramount. The key is achieving efficiency is to understand the process. The proper management of these changes comes with communication.
You can apply these principles to other fulfillment processes. We will explore applying them to manufacturing in additional posts. For discrete manufacturing, see the More ways to easily resolve material changes in Oracle R12 WIP and WMS post. If you are interested in seeing this applied in a process or batch manufacturing environment, please check out the More ways to easily resolve material changes in Oracle R12 OPM and WMS posts.
